Nader faces Green obstacle

Ralph Nader faces an unlikely rival in his latest effort to boost his presidential campaign: David Cobb, a lawyer from Northern California.

Cobb sounds the same policy notes as Nader. Both oppose the war in Iraq and support universal health care, stronger environmental protection and stricter regulation of business. Both want to change the two-party system, and both want President Bush defeated.

Cobb even has worked as Nader's political ally. He helped build the Green Party's organization in Texas when Nader ran as the group's presidential standard-bearer in 1996. Then he served as the party's general counsel and managed Nader's Texas campaign when the consumer advocate was the Green nominee in 2000, a candidacy many Democrats say cost Al Gore the White House.

This year, Nader's bid for the presidency as an independent again worries Democrats. On Saturday he hoped to win the endorsement of the Green Party, meeting in convention in Milwaukee. Because he is not running as a Green, the party cannot formally nominate him.

But standing in his way is Cobb, 41, who argues that the Greens would be better off nominating one of their own: him.

"My primary goals are to grow and build the Green Party," Cobb said. The party "is here to stay," the Eureka, Calif., resident added, while "candidates will come and go ... even candidates as important and famous as Ralph Nader."

Some doubt that argument will work for Cobb. Nader, said Green Party spokesman Scott McLarty, "has what David Cobb doesn't have, which is a great big name."

As Greens gathered for their convention, the Nader-Cobb race offers them not only the choice between a prominent public figure and a virtual unknown but also competing visions of what the party's goal should be in the 2004 election.

Cobb wants to transform the Greens into a potent force in American politics, and he says the way to accomplish that is to have a committed party member promoting its message.

Nader, 70, is seeking the party's endorsement as part of his effort to reshape the country's political landscape into one where multiple parties can thrive.

Nader's campaign is working to put him on as many state ballots as possible, regardless of the effect on the Democratic campaign against Bush. A Green Party endorsement could help him gain ballot access in several of the race's most closely contested states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Oregon and New Mexico.

Cobb's campaign, in contrast, would target the roughly 40 states not labeled as battlegrounds--what many have termed a "safe state" strategy. Emphasizing his message in firmly Republican or Democratic territory, Cobb wants progressives to vote Green and "invest" in its long-term growth.

In states viewed as tossups, Cobb would urge progressives to vote their conscience, whether that means Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry or a more left-leaning alternative.

Nader's selection of Peter Camejo, a prominent Green activist and Northern Californian, as his running mate is expected to increase Nader's support among the party faithful.